Egyptian Mythology

by Charles H. Long

From time immemorial Egypt has been known as the country of two lands: The desertlike Upper Egypt, or the Red Land, and Lower Egypt, or the Black Land, where the soil is fertile. Even today 99 percent of the Egyptian population live in the Black Land. The significance of this duality is more than a geographical and demographic fact; it is a basic element in the very beginnings of the culture of the ancient Egyptians and finds significant expression in their religion and myths.

Ancient Egyptian culture, myth, and religion might be characterized as a duality with rhythmic structures contained within a static unity. Unlike Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt as a civilization did not develop several powerful city-states along two rivers. Egypt had one river of significance, the Nile, and smaller villages grew up alongside its banks. Each of these village communities manifested a mythology, but these mythologies did not create tensions among the communities. In ancient Egypt the tendency was toward unity and stasis, not confrontation and tension. A text that exemplifies this attitude, while taking into account older historical and local traditions, is the theology of Memphis, recorded on the Shabaka Stone. The Memphite theology presents the teachings of Menes, who established (c.3000 BC) a new capital at Memphis. In this theology all local and former mythological traditions are brought to their theological goal in the god Ptah. The text is a cosmology that describes the creation of the world and the unity of the land of Egypt as a process in the eternal ordering of the world. Ptah creates everything from notions that were in his heart and are then pronounced by his tongue. All things--the universe, living beings, justice, beauty, and so on--are created in this manner. The gods are also created in this way; coming forth first as concepts of Ptah's mind, they enter into the material forms of the world--stone, metal, wood--that have equally been created out of Ptah.

From the Shabaka Stone

[King of Upper and Lower Egypt] is this Ptah, who is called the great name:
[Ta-te]nen [South-of-his-Wall, Lord of eternity]
[the joiner] of Upper and Lower Egypt is he, this uniter who arose as king of Upper Egypt
and arose as king of Lower Egypt. "Self-begotten," so says Atum: "who created the Nine Gods."

The Memphite theology takes over older local notions of creation, such as that of Hermopolis, which describes creation proceeding from eight primordial beings of chaos who inhabited the primeval slime. The four males are toads, and the four females snakes, forming the pairs of Nun and Naunet (primordial matter and primordial space); Kuk and Kauket (the illimitable and the boundless); Huh and Hauhet (darkness and obscurity); Amon and Amaunet (hidden and concealed ones). These eight bring forth the sun, and in the Memphite theology they are said to come forth from Ptah himself.

Another part of the Memphite mythology takes up myths from the Old Kingdom about the gods Horus and Seth. These two deities contend for authority over Egypt; another deity, Geb, the earth-god, acts as mediator. Geb first partitions the country between the two, then, changing his mind, gives the entire country to Horus. In the Memphite theology, the pharaoh Menes is identified with Horus. That theology also makes Geb homologous to Ptah, but in another mythological context Geb, the power in the earth, is supreme. He is the primeval hillock that is the symbol of the first creation. For the Egyptians the earth deity is male rather than female.

[Geb, lord of the gods, commanded] that the Nine Gods gather to him.
He judged between Horus and Seth; he ended their quarrel.
He made Seth the king of Upper Egypt in the land of Upper Egypt,
up to the place in which he was born, which is Su.
And Geb made Horus King of Lower Egypt in the land of Lower Egypt,
up to the place in which his father was drowned
which is "Division-of-the-Two-Lands."
Thus Horus stood over one region, and Seth stood over one region.
They made peace over the Two Lands at Ayan. That was the division of the Two Lands. ...
Then it seemed wrong to Geb that the portion of Horus was like the portion of Seth.
So Geb gave Horus his inheritance, for he is the son of his firstborn son.

In the Old Kingdom mythology the sun Atum (or Atem) often appears as the first creator. He makes Shu and Tefnut (air and moisture) out of himself, and they in turn produce Geb and Nut (earth and sky). The children of the latter couple are Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nepthys. Thus the first four deities establish the cosmos, and the later four are mediators between humans and the cosmos. Osiris is the symbol of the dead king, who is succeeded in the form of Horus, the living ruler. Isis is the consort of Osiris, and after his murder by Seth, she reconstitutes his body and thus achieves for him eternal life; her ally in this role is Nepthys, the consort of Seth. Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, ultimately vanquishes Seth, a symbol of antistructure or antiorder. Seth is related to the desert of Upper Egypt. As a deity of clouds, he opposed Atum, the sun.

His (Ptah's) Ennead is before him as teeth and lips. They are the semen and the hands of Atum. For the Ennead of Atum came into being through his semen and his fingers. But the Ennead is the teeth and the lips in this mouth which pronounced the name of every thing, from which Shu and Tefnut came forth, and which gave birth to the Ennead.

Although kingship appears as the pivot around which Egyptian mythology revolves, the key mythological themes are creation, procreation, revival, and the unity of the two lands. The temporal pharaoh was only a symbol of these orders. The power behind them is expressed in the sun, in the earth, and in animals, especially cattle. The language and symbols of power may at any time be translated from one into another--for example, the sun might be described in the symbolism of cattle or the earth in the symbolism of the sun. In the theology of the New Kingdom, the supreme god was Amon-Re, an identification of the Theban (and Hermopolitan) creator-god Amon with the sun-god Ra (successor to Atum).

He (Ptah) gave birth to the gods,
He made the towns,
He established the nomes,
He placed the gods in their shrines,
He settled their offerings,
He established their shrines,
He made their bodies according to their wishes.
Thus the gods entered into their bodies,
Of every wood, every stone, every clay,
Every thing that grows upon him
In which they came to be.
Thus were gathered to him all the gods and their Kas,
Content, united with the Lord of the Two Lands.

Historically, the Egyptian gods were local deities venerated by the citizens of their cities, to whom they gave their protection. Their priests were not a caste cut off from the rest of the inhabitants, but scribes and tradesmen - and occasionally women - who served their god on an often temporary basis.
With the passing of time some of these gods achieved nation-wide importance and were worshiped in new temples throughout the country and their stories, like that of Isis and Osiris, known to everyone. But in their new abodes they were not just national but also local deities and often retained characteristics they inherited when they were fused with similar local gods.
Most myths concerning these gods were transmitted orally from generation to generation and it often fell to foreigners to put them to paper. The Egyptians themselves generally wrote down only texts whose exact wording was of importance: magical spells, for instance, were deemed to be effective only if they were recited word for word [1].

Descriptions of some of the gods

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